Legal Research on the Internet

• Author: Ted Tjaden
• Pages: 133-156

133

CHAPTER 5

LEGAL RESEARCH ON

THE INTERNET

A. INTRODUCTION

The Internet continues to drastically change legal research. Tradition-

ally, legal researchers used print materials in law libraries to f‌ind law-

related information. They were thereby limited to the amount of space

and materials t he print-based law library could afford, a limitation that

often meant that the law library had a f‌inite collection focusing on ma-

terials from within its own jurisdiction. While CD-ROMs and online

commercial databases have brought legal research to the researcher’s

desktop (especially over the last twenty to twenty-f‌ive years), it has

been recent Internet technology that continues to revolutionize the

way legal research is conducted. This ch apter will focu s on freely avail-

able Internet resources, while Chapter 6 will focus on commercial, fee-

based online legal research databases.

The free Internet has several applications for legal research:

• as a source of information (searching the World Wide Web)

• as a means of communication (using e-mail)

• as a virtual community (using law-related discussion groups, blogs,

and RSS feeds)

The usefulness of the Internet for legal research is reinforced by its

wide availability t hroughout most jurisdictions in the world and its rela-

tive ease of use. A part icularly nice feature of the Internet is the abilit y to

expand legal resources beyond the walls of one’s own print law library

LEGAL RESEARCH AND WRITING134

to online international and foreign legal resources that would not have

been easily accessible to most researchers through traditional means.

While the Internet has a number of useful features, it is always ne-

cessary for the researcher to evaluate the quality of information being

found, especially since not all m aterial on the Internet has been subject

to the same level of editorial control as most print or online fee-based

publications.

B. EVALUATING WEB INFORMATION

There are standard criter ia by which free websites should be evaluated.1

These criteria include a number of things that evaluate the quality and

reliability of the information to be found on the site:

• Authorship: Who authored the mater ial? Is it clear who owns the web-

site? Is the site aff‌iliated with a rel iable or known publisher or organ-

ization? Does the site provide a mailing address, phone number, and

e-mail address? It is always important to consider authorship when

using freely available websites — anyone can publish a website with

relative ease with no objective editorial policies or control.

• Accuracy and quality: Is the site free of spelling and grammatical er-

rors? Does the site contain broken links? Well-maintained websites

tend to indicate that the owner of the site is taking the time to keep

the information current and accurate.

• Purpose: Why does the website exist? Is it trying to sell a product or

advocate a particular viewpoint? Print publications, like websites,

can contain biased points of view. The one difference between print

publications and websites, however, may be the ease with which one

can access web pages and the speed by which one may scan the in-

formation without appreciating that the information may contain

subtle biases.

• Scope: What is the scope or date range of the materi al on the website?

How often is the site updated? Good websites will show when the

1 See, for example, Joot aek Lee, “Gatekeepers of Legal In formation: Evaluating

and Integrat ing Free Internet Legal Resou rces into the Classroom” (2012) 17

Barry Law Re view 221; Meris Bray, “Unraveling the Web: Deter mining Website

Trustworthi ness” in David P Whelan, Man aging Information Overload: Inte rnet

Resources, Tips and Tools (Toronto: Law Society of Upper Can ada, 2008); JUSTIA

Virtual Chase, “Information Quality,” online: http://virtualchase.justia.com/

other-resources /information-qual ity; Southern Illinoi s University School of Law

Library, “Evaluat ing Websites and Other Informat ion Resources,” online: www.

law.siu.edu/lawlib/guides/eval.htm; Marcus P Zillman, “Information Quality Re-

sources” (18 July 2014), online: www.llrx.com/features/informationquality.htm.